Dear colleagues, please find below the abstract and link to our recently published paper on the discovery of a Pleistocene blue whale from Italy, and the implications of this new fossil (and additional specimens from Peru) for the evolution of mysticete gigantism. Bianucci G, Marx F G, Collareta A, Stefano A D, Landini W, Morigi C, and Varola A. 2019. Rise of the titans: baleen whales became giants earlier than thought. Biol Lett, 15: 20190175. Link: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2019.0175 Abstract: Baleen whales (Mysticeti) are major ecosystem engineers, thanks to their enormous size and bulk filter feeding strategy. Their signature gigantism is thought to be a relatively recent phenomenon, resulting from a Plio-Pleistocene mode shift in their body size evolution. Here, we report the largest whale fossil ever described: an Early Pleistocene (1.5–1.25 Ma) blue whale from Italy with an estimated body length of up to 26 m. Macroevolutionary modelling taking into account this specimen, as well as additional material from the Miocene of Peru, reveals that the proposed mode shift occurred either somewhat earlier, or perhaps not at all. Large-sized mysticetes comparable to most extant species have existed since at least the Late Miocene, suggesting a long-term impact on global marine ecosystems. Kind regards, Felix Marx _____________________________ *Felix G. Marx* PhD | FNRS Postdoctoral Fellow *University of Liège, Belgium *Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium *Monash University, Melbourne, Australia *Museums Victoria, Melbourne, Australia Address: Institut royal des Sciences naturelles de Belgique D.O. Terre et Histoire de la Vie, Evolution de la Paléobiosphère 29 rue Vautier, 1000 Brussels, Belgium Phone: +32 (0)488 897314